Tonight we focus our attention on centipedes.Not Lu Feng, Number One of the Five Venom Mob, and not the 1980 Atari coin op arcade game that I'd light you up like an eighth oz bowl of chocolate kush on(Possibly, I'm just saying I was pretty nice on it, as well as the Millipede follow up, so choose your challenges wisely, young Grasshoppers), but instead the 2010 Dutch horror movie that's been developing an impressive cult following upon release.Nevermind all the ballyhoo you've heard surrounding tonight's review.This isn't "the most disgusting horror film of all time" as lightweights like Entertainment Weekly(What self-respecting horror fan looks to EW for new genre picks, really.Not entirely sure I wanna know the answer to that one...) would have you believe.What started as a pretty sick idea for punishing child molesters from director Six has come to fruition as an effective, original, and sometimes very funny horror exercise that draws more of its potency from heavy tension and implied gore a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre than over-the-top chunk blowing nastiness like you'd imagine.If you're up for a well-made horrific indie throwback to the glory days of mad scientists and their laboratory full of half-baked atrocities against God and humanity, this flick should be next on your queue.If you're a twisted little puppy looking for a bowl brimming over with visceral grue and explicit splatter, you might want to wait for Six's follow up later this year, as he promises to pull out all the stops for the sequel.As much of a child of the "Show me everything!" era of the seventies and eighties as I undoubtedly am, I dig running into stylistic movies like this just as much.You probably will, too.Onwards!
Jenny and Lindsay(Ashlynn Yennie,Ashley C. Williams)are besties that are about to get even closer still.
When American tourists Jenny and Lindsay(Ashlynn Yennie and Ashley C. Williams) break down on a secluded German back road during a storm, their search for help brings them to the doorstep of Dr. Heiter(Dieter Laser),once a world-renowned surgeon in separating conjoined twins.His days of good samaritanism long passed, Heiter instead drugs the girls and kidnaps them, hooking them up to iv drips in a medical ward in his flat, where they awaken to the doctor informing a burly truck driver that he's kidnapped previously that he isn't a match, giving him a lethal injection and removing him from the equation.By the time they come to again, Heiter has snagged a Japanese tourist named Katsuro(Akihiro Kitamura) who now occupies the adjoining hospital bed.The doctor explains to his captives that though his expertise in twin separation brought him the respect of the medical community, his latest experiment will result in entirely new multi-segmented creatures that share a single digestive tract, and that these three human guinea pigs will provide the first sequence for his creation; the human centipede.With a handy magic lantern, he details the intricate surgery connecting the three mouth-to-anus(after the incisors have been removed and kneecap tendons have been severed, mind you) via flaps of gluteal flesh sewed into each respective segment's face.Lindsay isn't especially keen on becoming a human arthropod anytime soon, and tries to escape, but her efforts are rewarded by an annoyed Heiter's acknowledging that her attempts have bought her placement as ze middle piece(!), apparently the worst position in the sequence, as Heiter's rebellious Rottweiler found out before being transformed into the late "3-Hund"(!!).
For Dr. Heiter(Dieter Laser), it aint "ass to mouth" without "to ass to mouth" at the end.
Heiter's unorthodox surgery is a success(?), and he's soon chomping at the bit to train his new Japanese obscenity-spewing pet(Katsuro is the first segment, and the only one still able to vocalize above a whimper), delighting as Katsuro defecates and Lindsay is forced to swallow the bowel movement from the middle(implied,kiddies,only implied!).Irritated by constant screams and sobbing, the doctor soon realizes that his third segment, Jenny, suffers from blood poisoning and infection, and is not long for this world.Two detectives investigating some local disappearances show up at the doctor's door and suddenly fate has dropped two new healthy segments to replace Jenny with into Heiter's diabolical hands.After his attempt to drug the lawmen fails miserably, they leave to obtain a search warrant for his premises.The centipede manages to escape from the ward, repeatedly stabbing Heiter in his legs and biting a sizeable chunk out of his throat(!), but he eventually corners the man-made monstrosity, leading Katsuro to question whether the mad surgeon is really God, and that he deserves such a horrible fate for previously treating his own family poorly.The first segment then gouges out his own throat with a shard of broken glass.The detectives return and seperate(like the victims wish they could)to search the home, but Heiter shoots and kills the first by his indoor pool.He shoots the second in the labonza, but the detective manages to plug the doctor in the dome, killing him with a well-placed shell before he dies himself.Inside, Jenny and Lindsay hold hands, sobbing together as Jenny expires from her complications, leaving Lindsay attached at both ends to two corpses, trapped indefinitely.Wow!
"Wait,was that a peanut that just passed through your colon? I'm allergic to peanuts!"
Director Six has expressed an affinity for films that are "daring, original, cleverly made" citing Pasolini's Salo' and David Cronenberg's early films as inspiration.I'm with him on Cronenberg, at least.His sequel is in post-production at the time of this writing.Laser, who delivers a dynamically insane performance here(check out the deleted dance sequence on the extras and see what I mean), has worked extensively in German television dating back to the late sixties.Props to moviemate "TT" Traglia for also uncovering his performance in 2001's Suck my Dick.I'm probably gonna skip that one.Kitamura has written, directed, and starred in two films himself.Overall, a good time to be had by all, and I mean that.Check it out for yourselves.Three solid wops on the scale.
Katsuro(Akihiro Kitamura)adds primitive air conditioning to the newly formed multi-segmented being.
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